Getting started with Kato Unitrack

[Kiran]

1 hour ago, kvp said:

Yes. Just feed both sides of the double crossover. (two feeders on each loop) This would take care of the double crossover and provide power to the station tracks from both directions. (i'm assuming that the station will be located along the wall, where you parked the trains on the photos)

if I manage to get 2 of each turnouts (left and right), I might want to put in 2 island platforms on either side of the double track nearest the wall. But I only found 1 right turnout so far (in the US). I am guessing each platform needs a left and right turnout.

 

Does the other feeder have to be attached to the double crossover also? There is a curve piece there at the moment but I have 3 62 straight pieces after the curve. I can swap one of those for a feeder. Also, I am guessing I can use a 2 way extension feeder? I did pick up a couple of those at the store the other day.

 

Thanks ever so much for all the help.

 

P.S: I feel like I should take a course on electrical engineering basics 🙂

 

[kvp]

17 minutes ago, Kiran said:

if I manage to get 2 of each turnouts (left and right), I might want to put in 2 island platforms on either side of the double track nearest the wall. But I only found 1 right turnout so far (in the US). I am guessing each platform needs a left and right turnout.

 

Does the other feeder have to be attached to the double crossover also? There is a curve piece there at the moment but I have 3 62 straight pieces after the curve. I can swap one of those for a feeder. Also, I am guessing I can use a 2 way extension feeder? I did pick up a couple of those at the store the other day.

 

Thanks ever so much for all the help.

 

P.S: I feel like I should take a course on electrical engineering basics 🙂

 

The feeders will work as long as there are no other turnouts between them and the double crossover.

 

Yes, you need two turnouts for those platforms. They isolate the tracks from their ends. Leaving one out not only makes one of the tracks a stub track with a buffer, the other track will no longer work as a stop section so can't be used for parking trains. (an extra isolator on the opposite end on the frog side would help, but that would start to get a bit complex) With a left and right pair it just works.

 

ps: don't forget the compensating curves and s64-s for the #6-es...

 

[Kiran]

1 hour ago, kvp said:

 

ps: don't forget the compensating curves and s64-s for the #6-es...

 

I did forget/didn't realize. I see 2 types of 64 straights. Do I need the uncoupler version? 20-030 or 20-032? What curves would I need?

Edited August 8, 2018 by Kiran
Hit send too early!

[kvp]

5 hours ago, Kiran said:

I did forget/didn't realize. I see 2 types of 64 straights. Do I need the uncoupler version? 20-030 or 20-032? What curves would I need?

You just need the normal s64-s. The turnout curve is 718 mm so you need a pack of r718, one curve for each turnout. The s64-s are needed for the platform spacing between the turnouts and the reverse curves. You could check the geometry on the Kato (or Kato USA) site.

[cteno4]

Good PDFs at the bottom of this page

 

http://katousa.com/track-plans/n-plans.html

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Kiran]

Putting an extra feeder between the scissor crossover and the double track single crossover seems to have worked. Although it is a little iffy. I had to take out the power adapter for the power pack from the wall a couple of times before it was happy. The Kato Power pack seems to have trouble resetting unless you unplug the power adapter from the wall. If for some reason, the train stops once due to lack of power, it wouldn't start again unless you unplug.

 

I don't have the single turnouts for the station yet. but would I need another feeder or 2 between the single crossover and the station turnouts?

[kvp]

5 minutes ago, Kiran said:

Putting an extra feeder between the scissor crossover and the double track single crossover seems to have worked. Although it is a little iffy. I had to take out the power adapter for the power pack from the wall a couple of times before it was happy. The Kato Power pack seems to have trouble resetting unless you unplug the power adapter from the wall. If for some reason, the train stops once due to lack of power, it wouldn't start again unless you unplug.

 

I don't have the single turnouts for the station yet. but would I need another feeder or 2 between the single crossover and the station turnouts?

That's the short circuit protection. Just check that all feeder polarities are right. There is a tiny reset button on the back of the older blue throttles.

 

If the single crossover has all the screws at the right place, then no, you won't need any extra feeders for the rest of the layout. (unless you add another double crossover)

[Kiran]

Hi kvp,

 

Did you say that with my current setup, a siding (with 2 #6 turnouts at either end) would work but a stub would not?

[kvp]

3 hours ago, Kiran said:

Did you say that with my current setup, a siding (with 2 #6 turnouts at either end) would work but a stub would not?

It would, but the mainline side could not be used to park a train. That is ususally the intention.

 

However if you have a platform there, you might want to park a train on the mainline to. (like for example to move another train from the stub, through the crossover to the other loop) To do this, you need one isolator joiner exactly where the other turnout's frog would be. This will turn part of your mainline into a siding, power routable with the single turnout.

 

ps: There is an easy way to figure put power routing that i learned when i was a little kid:

-draw your layout on paper with a black pencil (both rails, accurately)

-draw in the isolators (both built in and manually added) with small diagonal lines crossing the rail they are in

-draw in controlled (switched) isolators with small circles on each controlled rail (these are at the inner frog sides of power routing turnouts)

-take a red and blue pencil and draw in feeders with red and blue filled circles on each rail

-use dashed circles for feeders connected to power on off switches

-take one of the colors and trace the rails that could be reached from each matching color feeder point, stop at each isolator and change to a dashed line on each switchable isolator (and keep it dashed) and start with a dashed line from dashed feeders

-if you hit an isolator, stop and go back to an unpainted split in the rails (turnout, feeder point) and continue on the other route until all routes are traced for all feeders)

-take the other colored pencil and do the same

Look at the results:

-tracing the same rail with both colors means a short

-no color means no power there

-dashed on one or both rails means a parking track, where power could be controlled with the turnouts or with on/off switches

If there was a problem, draw a modified layout and start tracing again until it's good.

 

[Kiran]

12 hours ago, kvp said:

It would, but the mainline side could not be used to park a train. That is ususally the intention.

 

However if you have a platform there, you might want to park a train on the mainline to. (like for example to move another train from the stub, through the crossover to the other loop) To do this, you need one isolator joiner exactly where the other turnout's frog would be. This will turn part of your mainline into a siding, power routable with the single turnout.

 

 

Got it thanks.

[Kiran]

So the platforms have arrived and the layout is all up and running now. It is pretty cool. Double track with 1 siding on each side with island platform for 1 side and a normal platform on the other side. I should have ordered 2 island platforms but I didn't.

 

All of this is working nicely. I can isolate the train on the main line and have another one cross through the siding. I also have the scissor crossover on 1 end of the station immediately after the #6 turnouts so I can have a train in the inner loop go to the siding on the outer loop and vice versa. I also wanted to put a double track single crossover on the opposite end of the station but I ran out of space. I used 6 S248 double tracks for the station because I wanted to be able to isolate an 8 car Shinkansen on the main line. My guest room isn't wide enough for the straights + #6 turnouts + 2 62 feeders + scissor crossover + double track single crossover + the curves! So I had to put the double track single crossover somewhere else after the curves.

 

I like the layout but it would be great to be able to switch the turnouts and the crossovers with electricity by flipping switches on a controller. What sort of a controller do I need to get for doing something like this? Is it a turn table?

 

also, the wife wants to have lighting in the station. Does the Kato platforms have lighting kits?? Can't see anywhere I can give power to the platforms.

 

Thanks again for all the help. It is great to see this come along finally.

 

Regards,

Kiran

[Yavianice]

1 hour ago, Kiran said:

also, the wife wants to have lighting in the station. Does the Kato platforms have lighting kits?? Can't see anywhere I can give power to the platforms.

KATO platforms do not have lighting kits. However, they recently announced a newer version which will have lighting kits, for a price. Due in October. If you already have the platforms it's probably cheaper to just glue/solder some LED's in there.

 

http://www.katomodels.com/n/kinko_homu_dx/

[Kiran]

So is there a way to run wires from the #6 turnouts, the scissors crossing and the double track single crossing to a control box so I can switch them without having to crwl along the track and manually do it? They all seem to have feeds sticking out of them.

[Kiha66]

6 hours ago, Kiran said:

So is there a way to run wires from the #6 turnouts, the scissors crossing and the double track single crossing to a control box so I can switch them without having to crwl along the track and manually do it? They all seem to have feeds sticking out of them.

 

Yep, they should all have wires that plug into the bottom (or in the case of the #6 and crossover, are permanently attached to the bottom) which then plug into the kato turnout controllers.  Kato also makes an extension cable which allows you to place the switches far away from your control location. 

The blue cable is the track power, the red cable is the switch control.

[Kiran]

21 hours ago, Kiha66 said:

 

Yep, they should all have wires that plug into the bottom (or in the case of the #6 and crossover, are permanently attached to the bottom) which then plug into the kato turnout controllers.  Kato also makes an extension cable which allows you to place the switches far away from your control location. 

The blue cable is the track power, the red cable is the switch control.

I am guessing you are talking about Kato 28-840 Turnout Control Switch. 

 

But how  about the scissors crossover? It has 1 feeder attached to it. If I connect this to the turnout switch, will it switch all the 4 turnouts at once?

[Yavianice]

16 minutes ago, Kiran said:

I am guessing you are talking about Kato 28-840 Turnout Control Switch. 

 

But how  about the scissors crossover? It has 1 feeder attached to it. If I connect this to the turnout switch, will it switch all the 4 turnouts at once?

Correct, all are switched at the same time

[Kiha66]

15 minutes ago, Kiran said:

I am guessing you are talking about Kato 28-840 Turnout Control Switch. 

 

But how  about the scissors crossover? It has 1 feeder attached to it. If I connect this to the turnout switch, will it switch all the 4 turnouts at once?

 

Yep!  The single wire controls all four turnouts at the same time. 

[katoftw]

This info is written on the instructions attached to the packaging the turnout come in. Worth ready these considering all the questions you have been asking recently.

[Kiran]

On 8/18/2018 at 2:13 PM, katoftw said:

This info is written on the instructions attached to the packaging the turnout come in. Worth ready these considering all the questions you have been asking recently.

Sorry for all the questions. I don't have enough sight to read the instructions or look at drawings. I typically use OCR to recognize printed text and read it with text to speech but this didn't work well with the packaging material. I should get around to writing all of this down for any other blind folks who might be interested in this stuff.

[Stripy's trains]

Hello i just started with N gauge modelling and as I wish to expand my starter set, I would like to know whether I need 2 control units for a parallel system that is linked with turnouts? 

[Kamome]

If you want to have differing control over the parallel tracks speed and direction you will need another controller. You will also need insulated joiners on the turnouts where the tracks cross to avoid a short.

 

 

[Stripy's trains]

13 hours ago, Kamome said:

If you want to have differing control over the parallel tracks speed and direction you will need another controller. You will also need insulated joiners on the turnouts where the tracks cross to avoid a short.

 

 

sorry still a newbie here so don't quite get the insulated joiners

[bill937ca]

This is what you are looking for:

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10003110

 

You pull out the regular gray joiner with a pair of pliers and insert the insulated joiner. Now no current will pass though the joint. 

 

If you want to feed a section that is isolated you will need a separate feeder plus a Power Feed Control Switch to turn the power on and off.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10275141

Edited December 31, 2018 by bill937ca

[Stripy's trains]

4 minutes ago, bill937ca said:

This is what you are looking for:

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10003110

 

You pull out the regular gray joiner with a pair of pliers and insert the insulated joiner. Now no current will pass though the joint. 

 

If you want to feed a section that is isolated you will need a separate feeder plus a Power Feed Control Switch to turn the power on and off.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10275141

what about using this?

 

1247 by Darth Stripy, on Flickr

[bill937ca]

This thread is about Kato Unitrack.  That looks like Tomix Finetrack which has separate insulators I am not familiar with. Unitrack and Finetrack are not generally interchangeable.